Best Foreign-Language Films

The international cinema that English-speaking audiences shouldn't keep skipping over. Subtitles, decades, and the films that have stood up.

Bong Joon-ho's line at the Cannes podium — that subtitles are a 'one-inch barrier' separating English-speaking audiences from the best of world cinema — has been quoted so much it risks sounding like a slogan. It's also accurate. English-language cinema is a small subset of the global film output, and the best work being done in any given year is usually being done in several languages at once.

Our picks across eight decades and a dozen languages.

The fifteen

  • Parasite (2019) — Bong Joon-ho. Korean. First non-English Best Picture winner.
  • Seven Samurai (1954) — Akira Kurosawa. Japanese. The ensemble action film.
  • Tokyo Story (1953) — Yasujiro Ozu. Japanese. The quietest masterpiece in cinema.
  • In the Mood for Love (2000) — Wong Kar-wai. Cantonese / Mandarin. The greatest romance of the 21st century.
  • Amélie (2001) — Jean-Pierre Jeunet. French. The most commercially successful French-language film of the 2000s.
  • City of God (2002) — Fernando Meirelles. Portuguese. Rio de Janeiro favela epic.
  • A Separation (2011) — Asghar Farhadi. Persian. The Iranian film that won Best Foreign Language Film.
  • Pan's Labyrinth (2006) — Guillermo del Toro. Spanish. Fascist Spain meets the fairy tale.
  • Drive My Car (2021) — Ryusuke Hamaguchi. Japanese. Three hours adapted from Murakami.
  • Spirited Away (2001) — Hayao Miyazaki. Japanese. The Oscar-winning Ghibli.
  • Roma (2018) — Alfonso Cuarón. Spanish. Best Director Oscar.
  • Persona (1966) — Ingmar Bergman. Swedish. The identity-collapse film.
  • Cinema Paradiso (1988) — Giuseppe Tornatore. Italian. The love-letter-to-cinema film.
  • The Lives of Others (2006) — Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. German. East Berlin surveillance drama.
  • Memories of Murder (2003) — Bong Joon-ho. Korean. The procedural that made him.

Where to look next

If you've never watched a subtitled film all the way through, the easiest starting point is the contemporary thriller — Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder, Asghar Farhadi's A Separation, Park Chan-wook's Decision to Leave. The plot work is foregrounded, the reading load is manageable, and the rewards are immediate.

For deeper engagement: the Criterion Channel, MUBI, Kanopy (free with most US public library cards), and the BFI Player carry catalogues that streaming-only viewers will not have encountered. Each has rotating spotlights that effectively curate themselves.